Sailor Moon Crystal Episode 3 - Rei, Sailor Mars (aka The hottest senshi of them all)

Burn baby burn! It's Rei, aka Sailor Mars, aka my 3rd favorite senshi. So I had very high hopes for this episode.

So letes start with her voice. Compared to the original version, according to my good buddy, she is defenantly sounding older and more mature. However, as I am accustomed to her English voice, I can't say I was fazed too much by the deep richness of her tone. I like it.

Her transformation sequence, I think, is way better than Moon and Mercury. I want to say it may have something to do with the lighting and all those nice red and orange tones. It looks a bit more fleshed out whereas Moon and Mercury look like animated faced pasted on 3D models.

The pacing of  the story was pretty  good, though I do wish we would have gotten to see more of Rei before she was captured. She seemed almost like a secondary character even though her name is inn the title.

In the original, Usagi visits at leats twice and we get to see some monolouging from Reis side. In this go around, rei isn't much of a talker, and she actuaally seems cooler that way. However, I still think they gave Usagi a little bit too much screen time.

There were also a few akward animation moments. There were scenes where Rei's face seemed incrediably long and disporpotionat. There wass also an odd scene when Sailor Mars stretched out her arm towards the camera, but her had seems to have misplacedher thumb, making her hand look incrediably strange.

The story goes on, Usagi carelessly transforms into a useless flight attendant in front of Tuxedo Mask, we see Rei awaken to her powers while Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury fight a loosing battle, and everyone is saved in the end.

Highlights of this episode go to the revamping of Mar's powers. We all know she uses fire and it was nice seeing the fire animated in the real time fight instead of just as a cut away scene. I love that they added a nice combo of red and blue fire as well. Her Akuryo Taisen is fluid and fast and had a more powerful feel to it.

Another highlight is the scene between Jedite and a passed of Rei. Jed is perplexed at the odd attraction he feels towards Rei. I like this because it is a hint of the teaser romance between the generals and the senshi that was always hinted at in the manga but never truely confirmed. In the original animation, this subplot was non existant, so as a dedicated Sailor Moon fan, I loved seeing this small moment. However, I doubt they will persue the theory.

All in all, it was a good epissode. I am loving the diva vibe and thsi episode just solidifies Sailor Mars in my top 3.